USAFWA

Amazon electric fish inspire underwater robotics

Electric fish from South America are opening up new ideas in robotics.

Ghost knifefish, as they are known, put a small current through the water to sense their environment, and undulate a long fin to move around.

Scientists at Northwestern University, US, believe both features could be harnessed in a new class of autonomous underwater vehicles.

They are developing robots that will be able to swim around debris in total darkness, such as inside a sunken ship.

"Today, we don't really have underwater robots that work well in really cluttered conditions or in conditions where vision isn't useful," said Prof Malcolm MacIver.

"Just consider the sunken cruise ship. It is very dangerous to send divers into such situations where the water can be very cloudy.

"But we can learn from the electric fish. They don't use vision to hunt at night in the rivers of the Amazon basin, and their movement through the cluttered root masses and flooded forests requires incredible precision. They fit a big hole in terms of our capabilities in underwater robots."

Prof MacIver was explaining his work here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He has studied knifefish for years, deciphering their sensory and locomotion systems.

The animals generate an electric field from modified neurons running along their spinal cord. When prey, such as aquatic insects, enter this field the fish measure a tiny change in voltage at the surface of their skin.

The perturbation is only one-tenth to one-hundredth of a millionth of a volt, but sufficient for the receptors to detect it.

"The fish have evolved an amazing system," said Prof MacIver. "Imagine your retina stretched over your entire body and what that would be like. That's the situation that knifefish find themselves in.

"They perceive in all directions. They emit a kind of radar, but it's an electric field; and the sensory receptors scattered over their entire body surface mean they can detect things coming from all directions."

The technology in Prof MacIver's lab is now simulating this enabling a robot in a tank to react to what is around it and move accordingly.

But it is the special propulsion technique employed by knifefish that the Northwestern researcher also wants to copy.

These are the ripples sent through the long fin on the belly. Undulate one way, and the fish will move forward; undulate the other way, and the direction of travel is reversed. Use counter-propagating waves that meet in the middle, and the fish will move up.

"From all our simulations, we now have mathematical relationships between things like the frequency and amplitude of the travelling wave and how much propulsion you get," said Prof MacIver. "So now we can put that into technology and get it to work properly."

Currently, the Northwestern lab is demonstrating artificial sensory and locomotion capabilities on two separate robotic platforms. The aim now is to bring them together into a single working device.

In the meantime, Prof MacIver has also been having some fun with his fish by putting them in a "choir".

Every fish produces a constant electric field and every species emits at a different frequency. So, by converting these frequencies to a sound, it is possible to make some knifefish music. Prof MacIver has developed an art installation based on 12 fish tanks.

Wavier jet stream 'may drive weather shift'

New research suggests that the main system that helps determine the weather over Northern Europe and North America may be changing.

The study shows that the so-called jet stream has increasingly taken a longer, meandering path.

This has resulted in weather remaining the same for more prolonged periods.

The work was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago.

The observation could be as a result of the recent warming of the Arctic. Temperatures there have been rising two to three times faster than the rest of the globe.

According to Prof Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University in New Jersey: "This does seem to suggest that weather patterns are changing and people are noticing that the weather in their area is not what it used to be."

The meandering jet stream has accounted for the recent stormy weather over the UK and the bitter winter weather in the US Mid-West remaining longer than it otherwise would have.

"We can expect more of the same and we can expect it to happen more frequently," says Prof Francis

The jet stream, as its name suggests, is a high-speed air current in the atmosphere that brings with it the weather.

It is fuelled partly by the temperature differential between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes.

If the differential is large then the jet stream speeds up, and like a river flowing down a steep hill, it ploughs through any obstacles - such as areas of high pressure that might be in its way.

If the temperature differential reduces because of a warming Arctic then the jet stream weakens and, again, like a river on a flat bed, it will meander every time it comes across an obstacle.

This results in weather patterns tending to becoming stuck over areas for weeks on end. It also drives cold weather further south and warm weather further north. Examples of the latter are Alaska and parts of Scandinavia, which have had exceptionally warm conditions this winter.

With the UK, the US and Australia experiencing prolonged, extreme weather, the question has been raised as to whether recent patterns are due to simple natural variations or the result of manmade climate change? According to Prof Francis, it is too soon to tell.

"The Arctic has been warming rapidly only for the past 15 years," she says.

"Our data to look at this effect is very short and so it is hard to get a very clear signal.

"But as we have more data I do think we will start to see the influence of climate change."

Prof Francis was taking part in a session on Arctic change involving Mark Serreze, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.

He said the idea that changes in the polar north could influence the weather in middle latitudes - so-called "Santa's revenge" - was a new and lively area of research and somewhat controversial, with arguments for and against.

"Fundamentally, the strong warming that might drive this is tied in with the loss of sea-ice cover that we're seeing, because the sea-ice cover acts as this lid that separates the ocean from a colder atmosphere," Dr Serreze explained.

"If we remove that lid, we pump all this heat up into the atmosphere. That is a good part of the signal of warming that we're now seeing, and that could be driving some of these changes."

John Kerry to urge climate action in Indonesia address

US Secretary of State John Kerry is to deliver a speech urging the global community to act against climate change, during a visit to Indonesia.

He will make the point that there is scientific proof of climate change threatening not only the environment, but also the world economy.

Mr Kerry is due to give his address on Sunday in the capital, Jakarta, as part of a regional tour.

The US, along with China, is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

On Saturday, both nations issued a joint statement pledging to do more to curb their carbon dioxide output.

Steps include reducing car emissions and improving the energy efficiency of buildings.

'Point of no return'

Mr Kerry, who started his tour in South Korea on Thursday, arrived in Indonesia on Saturday after visiting China.

It is part of President Obama's "pivot to Asia" policy, begun in 2012, shifting the US foreign policy focus more towards Asia and away from Europe and the Middle East.

In his Jakarta speech, Mr Kerry will underscore the way in which climate change is impacting Asian countries.

"Secretary Kerry will deliver remarks on the compelling and undeniable scientific case of this growing challenge, that is pushing the planet towards a tipping point of no return", a senior state department official said.

Mr Kerry wants to help broker a global climate treaty in 2015 that will commit the US and other nations to historic reductions in fossil fuel pollution, the BBC's Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas reports.

The talks in Paris next year are aimed at finding a new international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which ends in 2020. The US never ratified the Kyoto agreement, signed in 1997.

Environmental groups have criticised President Barack Obama for not doing more to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions.

On Saturday, the US and China said they would "collaborate through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions".

Last year, a landmark report by the UN's climate panel found scientists were 95% certain that humans were the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s.

Syria talks: UK and France blame government for collapse

The UK and France have blamed the Syrian government for the collapse of peace talks with the opposition in Geneva.

"The responsibility for it lies squarely with the Assad regime," UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, said the government had "blocked any progress".

UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi apologised to the Syrian people for the failure of the negotiations.

The final session of talks lasted a mere 27 minutes on Saturday morning. It was the sixth day of the second round.

Mr Brahimi said an agenda had been agreed for a third round, but no date was set.

The agenda, he said, comprised four points:

Violence and terrorism
A transitional governing body
National institutions
National reconciliation

But key sticking points in Geneva were a transitional governing body and terrorism, a term often used by the government to describe rebel activity.

The government's chief negotiator, Bashar al-Jaafari, addressing reporters after the talks, stressed that terrorism must be dealt with fully before any other point could be discussed.

"Once you have an agenda you should respect the agenda fully without any interpretation or misinterpretation... we said that we cannot move from... item one to item two or item three or item four without fully considering this item and concluding by a common vision of this item by the two sides, something that the other side objected to."

Opposition spokesman Louay Safi again insisted on discussion of a transitional government that does not include President Bashar al-Assad - something the government rejects.

"A third round without talking about transition would be a waste of time," Mr Safi said.

In his apology to the Syrian people, Mr Brahimi admitted that the talks "had not come out with very much".

Mr Brahimi said both sides needed "to go back to their base" for consultations and to think about whether they wanted the process to continue or not.

As yet, there has been no official reaction from the United States or Russia to the talks' breakdown. They are co-sponsors of the Geneva process but back opposite sides in the conflict.

For the UK, Mr Hague said it was clear that Damascus was opposed to a transitional governing body - "an issue that is at the heart of the negotiation and an essential means of ending the conflict".

"We owe it to the people of Syria to do all we can to make progress towards a political solution. So we will continue to give our strong support to Lakhdar Brahimi and the Geneva process," Mr Hague said.

Mr Fabius said Syria had blocked any "progress on establishing a transition government and stepped up violence and acts of terror against the civilian population."

While the talks faltered, the fighting continued, with reports of further artillery fire on the rebel-held town of Yabroud near the Lebanese border.

Fighting there has already forced the evacuation of thousands of residents.

According to Syrian TV, the military killed several members of an al-Qaida-linked group near Yabroud.

In an estimate published on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that relies on a network of informants in Syria, says that 140,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Assad began in 2011.

UN figures suggest some 9.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Data protection: Angela Merkel proposes Europe network

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is proposing building up a European communications network to help improve data protection.

It would avoid emails and other data automatically passing through the United States.

In her weekly podcast, she said she would raise the issue on Wednesday with French President Francois Hollande.

Revelations of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) have prompted huge concern in Europe.

Disclosures by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden suggested even the mobile phones of US allies, such as Mrs Merkel, had been monitored by American spies.

Classified NSA documents revealed that large amounts of personal data are collected from the internet by US and British surveillance.

Mrs Merkel criticised the fact that Facebook and Google can be based in countries with low levels of data protection while carrying out business in nations that offer more rigorous safeguards.

"Above all, we'll talk about European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn't have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic," she said.

"Rather, one could build up a communication network inside Europe."

Sensitive

There was no doubt that Europe had to do more in the realm of data protection, she said.

A French official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that the government in Paris planned to take up the German initiative.

Personal privacy is a sensitive issue in Germany where extensive surveillance was carried out under the Nazis and in communist East Germany.

A foreign policy spokesman for Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats, Philipp Missfelder, recently said revelations about US spying had helped bring relations with Washington down to their worst level since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Germany has been trying to persuade Washington to agree to a "no-spy" agreement but without success.

Mathematics: Why the brain sees maths as beauty

Brain scans show a complex string of numbers and letters in mathematical formulae can evoke the same sense of beauty as artistic masterpieces and music from the greatest composers.

Mathematicians were shown "ugly" and "beautiful" equations while in a brain scanner at University College London.

The same emotional brain centres used to appreciate art were being activated by "beautiful" maths.

The researchers suggest there may be a neurobiological basis to beauty.

The likes of Euler's identity or the Pythagorean identity are rarely mentioned in the same breath as the best of Mozart, Shakespeare and Van Gogh.

The study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience gave 15 mathematicians 60 formula to rate.

One of the researchers, Prof Semir Zeki, told the BBC: "A large number of areas of the brain are involved when viewing equations, but when one looks at a formula rated as beautiful it activates the emotional brain - the medial orbito-frontal cortex - like looking at a great painting or listening to a piece of music."

The more beautiful they rated the formula, the greater the surge in activity detected during the fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans.

"Neuroscience can't tell you what beauty is, but if you find it beautiful the medial orbito-frontal cortex is likely to be involved, you can find beauty in anything," he said.

To the untrained eye there may not be much beauty in Euler's identity, but in the study it was the formula of choice for mathematicians.

It is a personal favourite of Prof David Percy from the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

He told the BBC: "It is a real classic and you can do no better than that.

"It is simple to look at and yet incredibly profound, it comprises the five most important mathematical constants - zero (additive identity), one (multiplicative identity), e and pi (the two most common transcendental numbers) and i (fundamental imaginary number).

"It also comprises the three most basic arithmetic operations - addition, multiplication and exponentiation.

"Given that e, pi and i are incredibly complicated and seemingly unrelated numbers, it is amazing that they are linked by this concise formula.

"At first you don't realise the implications it's a gradual impact, perhaps as you would with a piece of music and then suddenly it becomes amazing as you realise its full potential."

He said beauty was a source of "inspiration and gives you the enthusiasm to find out about things".

Mathematician and professor for the public understanding of science, Marcus du Sautoy, said he "absolutely" found beauty in maths and it "motivates every mathematician".

He said he loved a "small thing [mathematician Pierre de] Fermat did". He showed that any prime number that could be divided by four with a remainder of one was also the sum of two square numbers.

So 41 is a prime, can be divided by four with one left over and is 25 (five squared) plus 16 (four squared).

"So if it has remainder one it can always be written as two square numbers - there's something beautiful about that.

"It's unexpected why should the two things [primes and squares] have anything to do with each other, but as the proof develops you start to see the two ideas become interwoven like in a piece of music and you start to see they come together.

He said it was the journey not the final proof that was exciting "like in a piece of music it's not enough to play the final chord".

He said this beauty of maths was missing from schools and yet amazing things could be shown with even primary school mathematical ability.

In the study, mathematicians rated Srinivasa Ramanujan's infinite series and Riemann's functional equation as the ugliest of the formulae.

Viber messaging app bought by Japan's Rakuten

Messaging app Viber has been bought by Rakuten, the owner of online retailer Play.com.

The Japanese company will pay $900m (£540m) for the mobile application, which offers free calls and text messages from a mobile phone.

Rakuten, which also owns the Canadian e-reader Kobo, said the purchase would allow it to expand its digital content into emerging markets.

Viber, which is based in Cyprus, has 300 million registered users.

"This acquisition is a totally new strategy that will take Rakuten to a different level," said Rakuten's chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani.

"Developing this messaging system on our own would have been impossible, " he added.

He suggested that Rakuten users might be able to use Viber's instant messages to contact an online store while considering a purchase.

Viber's chief executive and founder, Talmon Marco, said: "This combination presents an amazing opportunity for Viber to enhance our rapid user growth in both existing and new markets.

"Sharing similar aspirations with Rakuten, our vision is to be the world's number one communications platform, and our combination with Rakuten is an important step in that direction."

'Congested market'

Rakuten has been on a buying spree over the past couple of years - purchasing Europe-based video-on-demand company Wuaki.tv in 2012, the Singaporean online TV and film streaming Viki last year and a stake in the online scrapbook site Pinterest.

Viber is particularly big in the Middle East. Its founder, Mr Marco, was the chief information officer of Israel's Defence Forces and the company's research and development centre is still based in Israel, although its head office is in Cyprus.

The US, Russia and Australia are also among its biggest markets.

Viber competes with other messaging apps such as Whatsapp, WeChat and Line.

Ian Maude, internet analyst at Enders Analysis, expects more deals in the sector.

"This is a very congested market place, with lots of growth potential," he said.

He pointed out that social messaging apps tend to be used a lot by younger people, many of whom do not use email, so for a company such as Rakuten it gives them an opportunity to promote other products, such as games, to that generation.

Rakuten also reported that full-year net profit doubled to 43.5bn yen (£255m; $427m).

US factory output hit by 'severe weather'

US factory output fell in January due to the "severe weather" that hit some parts of the country.

Output fell by 0.8%, the biggest drop in four-and-a-half years, the Federal Reserve said. Compared with a year earlier, output was up by 1.3%.

Car manufacturing was hit particularly hard, as many plants lost at least a day's production due to bad weather.

Analysts had been expecting a sixth straight monthly rise in overall factory output.

Output of electrical equipment, furniture and fabricated metals was also down on the previous month. The "inclement weather in January contributed to some of these decreases," the Fed said.

Total industrial production, which includes mining and utilities, fell by 0.3%. Recent data has shown that retail sales in the US have fallen for the past two months, while jobs growth has also slowed markedly.

But analysts said that although the fall in production was a surprise, it said little about the underlying state of the US economy.

"The big question is whether the US economy is slowing significantly or whether it is merely going through a soft patch caused by extreme weather," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit. "The evidence points to the latter."

He said the figures were unlikely to change the Fed's policy of winding down stimulus measures, known as tapering.

"The Fed will most likely disregard the figures and continue to taper, although any further weakness on the data flow in coming months could prompt a rethink," he said.

Volkswagen's US workers vote against joining union

In a surprise move, US workers have voted against union representation at a Volkswagen car plant in the southern state of Tennessee.

The vote derails efforts by the United Auto Workers (UAW) to organise foreign-owned factories in the southern US.

Experts had expected the ballot to pass in favour of unionising, after Volkswagen tacitly supported the move.

The vote had faced resistance from Republican politicians, who argued it would slow economic growth.

It was the UAW's first attempt in 13 years to unionise a plant not run by one of the three big US carmakers - General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.

Analysts say the result could significantly curtail future organisation efforts and further dent the union's reputation.

Membership is reported to have plummeted 75% since the late 1970s, leaving it with barely 400,000 supporters.

'Outside influence'

Some 1,550 workers began voting at the plant in Chattanooga on Wednesday and rejected the union plan by 712 to 626 with an 89% turnout.

UAW spokesman Gary Casteel said "some outside influence" had been exerted on the poll.

There are still some issues that have to be sorted out about this election, and we'll let the people that do that evaluate the impact of others and whatnot further down the road," he said after the result was announced on Friday night.

Some believe the loss will make it harder for the UAW to recruit members at other southern plants.

"If they can't win this one, what can they win?" asked Art Schwartz, a former General Motors union negotiator following the vote.

The push for organisation started after Volkswagen opened its only US facility in Chattanooga in 2010.

The manufacturer's 61 other plants around the world have so-called "work councils", which represent employees' interests in daily dealings with management.

Mandated by law in Germany and popular in other European countries, works councils have never been tried in a US factory.

Prior to the ballot, VW's Chattanooga chief executive Frank Fischer said in a statement: "Our plant in Chattanooga has the opportunity to create a uniquely American Works Council, in which the company would be able to work co-operatively with our employees and ultimately their union representatives, if the employees decide they wish to be represented by a union."

Conservative groups had lead a fierce anti-union campaign in the lead-up to the ballot.

Opponents warned it would jeopardise Volkswagen's tax incentives and hurt the local economy by scaring away business.

Low wages have long been a selling point to lure big firms like Nissan and Boeing to the US south.

Belgium's parliament votes through child euthanasia

Parliament in Belgium has passed a bill allowing euthanasia for terminally ill children without any age limit, by 86 votes to 44, with 12 abstentions.

When, as expected, the bill is signed by the king, Belgium will become the first country in the world to remove any age limit on the practice.

It may be requested by terminally ill children who are in great pain and also have parental consent.

Opponents argue children cannot make such a difficult decision.

It is 12 years since Belgium legalised euthanasia for adults.

In the Netherlands, Belgium's northern neighbour, euthanasia is legal for children over the age of 12, if there is parental consent.

Under the Dutch conditions, a patient's request for euthanasia can be fulfilled by a doctor if the request is "voluntary and well-considered" and the patient is suffering unbearably, with no prospect of improvement.

'Immoral' law

One man in the public gallery of Belgium's parliament shouted "murderers" in French when the vote was passed, Reuters news agency reports.

Supporters of the legislation argue that in practice the law will affect an extremely small number of children, who would probably be in their teens, the BBC's Duncan Crawford reports from Brussels.

The law states a child would have to be terminally ill, face "unbearable physical suffering" and make repeated requests to die - before euthanasia is considered.

Parents, doctors and psychiatrists would have to agree before a decision is made.

Protesters have lobbied politicians against the changes.

Church leaders argued the law is immoral.

"The law says adolescents cannot make important decisions on economic or emotional issues, but suddenly they've become able to decide that someone should make them die," Brussels Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, said at a prayer vigil last week.

Some paediatricians have warned vulnerable children could be put at risk and have questioned whether a child can really be expected to make such a difficult choice.

Last week 160 Belgian paediatricians signed an open letter against the law, claiming that there was no urgent need for it and that modern medicine is capable of alleviating pain.

But opinion polls have suggested broad support for the changes in Belgium, which is mostly Catholic.

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